Delivering the promise of the Internet

 

AP 4G is the next generation of mobile communications that promises home broadband-like experience on wireless networks. File photo. 

 

This week, Bangalore became the second 4G-enabled city in the country after Kolkata

This week, amid much fanfare, telecom major Airtel launched its 4G services in Bangalore, making it the second 4G-enabled city in the country after Kolkata.

Airtel's fourth generation mobile broadband services are rolled out on the high-speed TD-LTE (Time Division Long-Term Evolution) network. With this, India becomes part of the few countries that have commercially deployed this cutting-edge technology believed to become the de-facto standard for 4G in the coming years.

4G is the next generation of mobile communications that promises home broadband-like experience on wireless networks. Currently, Airtel offers a connection through a dongle or a Wi-Fi gateway (priced at Rs. 7,999 and Rs. 7,550, respectively), so the focus is on data and services, with no voice and text capabilities as of now (unless over VoIP).

This also perhaps has to do with the fact that 4G-enabled mobile devices are expensive, and even if introduced, will cater to an even more niche segment that 3G has. Alluding to pricing issues, at the launch, Bharti Airtel Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Kapoor said mobile telephony tariffs were “unsustainable”. However, industry watchers believe that the game changer in the 4G scene will be Reliance Telecom (reportedly conducting 4G pilots now), the only company to own pan-India spectrum.

What is 4G?

Now, if you're just about coming to terms with what 3G is, and are a bit at sea about these various generations and what they've come to represent, the simple bottom line is that it is a way to browse faster, download and stream more content, and even access multiple services. 4G is believed to be the technology that will deliver the promise of the Internet: not just to browse faster, but do much more on the move. Once service providers start offering services, you will probably be able to experience the stuff that sci-fi of the eighties was made up of: a ‘smart home' or schools becoming redundant because teachers are able to deliver lectures online to children in a hundred villages at a time.

In its primer to the media, Airtel says that download speeds on its 4G networks can reach up to 40 mbps and uploads up to 20 mbps, on the move. However, the technical peak speed requirements (prescribed by the International Telecommunications Union – Radio) for 4G service is 100 megabits per seconds (mbps) for high mobility communication (that is while on the move in vehicles) and 1 gigabit per second for low-mobility communication.

The key difference

Technology-wise, what distinguishes a 4G network from others is that it uses packet data switching techniques (it does not support traditional circuit-switched telephony service).

While the frequency used for 2G, 3G and 4G is the same, the modulation differs.

However, in the case of 4G, the key difference from 3G is the introduction of the concept of time slots for each user.

While State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. and a few others launched 4G using WiMax technology a few years ago, 4G on an LTE backbone is being launched for the first time by Airtel in India.

World over, India is among a handful of countries that have launched 4G/LTE.

Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, was launched in Scandinavia in 2009. It is called ‘evolution' because it eventually hopes to evolve into actual defined 4G. While this launch has put Indian on the global map, given the partial success of 3G, there's ample room for some healthy scepticism here.

Inaugurating the first launch in Kolkata, Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal too commented on the low penetration of 3G technology, observing that “the benefits [of 3G] are not yet seen by the aam aadmi”.

Cost is a major reason for this slow uptake. In a price-sensitive market like India, a device that costs over four times that of a regular dongle is unlikely to find a large number of takers. However, the rental costs announced now are comparable to 3G services.

Another issue that 3G users face is poor network coverage, something that Airtel hopes to set right with LTE. The geographical coverage of Airtel's 4G network is around 25 per cent, and it plans to introduce these services in Hubli, Mysore and Mangalore.

Airtel has handed over the task of deploying and managing its network infrastructure to Chinese networking major Huawei, which already has a 45 per cent market share in providing hardware services to Indian telecom operators. With an eye on the 4G rollout, Huawei too, in recent months, has scaled up its India operations (technology, investments and human resources) and announced plans to set up a technology centre.

Another Chinese firm, ZTE, is managing the device and network requirements in the Kolkata circle, while Maharashtra is reportedly being handled by Nokia Siemens.

Promise of 4G

Kaustav Ghosh, adviser, PricewaterhouseCoopers, says that currently while the focus is on retail, telcos have to also look at the enterprise businesses and work towards the convergence of telcos and utilities such as ‘smart homes', where you can access utility platforms such as smart meters or operate appliances through your phone. “Areas such as education and healthcare are where we can really make a difference if you can penetrate rural areas,” he says.